I like to consider myself a big fan of movies, but the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of iconic films that I’ve never seen (Fight Club is one, I know… I know.).
A few years ago I was working on something with two colleagues and a box arrived in the mail. One person, we’ll call her Sally, posed the question, “What’s in the box?”.
The other person present, let’s call him Terry, immediately let out a “WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!” proclamation. Sally looked confused and Terry said, “What, you’ve never seen Se7en?” as if Sally was from Neptune.
Sally said no, and then they both looked at me. I had never seen this movie (I have now, and don’t worry I won’t spoil it if you haven’t… just know that’s an iconic line) and I didn’t want to look stupid. I wanted to look like I knew what was going on.
“Yea Sally! Come on, Se7en is awesome!” I said with absolutely no idea knowledge of the film.
This whole bit became sort of a running joke among the three of us. Terry would occasionally tease Sally about not knowing this movie and the all-important line, and every time I’d play up how awesome I thought the movie was – with literally zero knowledge on it.
About a year after this interaction I finally watched the movie. I got to the part of the movie where the line is uttered and very audibly shrieked to myself, “OHHHH!!!!”. It was epic.
What’s particularly amazing is that I went a whole year keeping this joke alive without it ever being discovered how unprepared I truly was for those conversations. If Sally or Terry had asked me literally anything about the movie – I would’ve been exposed.
Sometimes in life we scathe by when we’re unprepared. That’s what the Cowboys have seemingly done over these first three weeks. There’s no way on earth that they were prepared for the hand they were dealt when Week 1 began, and there’s no way that they’re prepared for the one that current faces them.
The Cowboys are proving that they know how to get by, even when they have no idea what really is inside the box. That’s the mark of a great team, that’s the mark of our team.
Welcome to my 5 Bold Predictions. Let’s roll.
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Ezekiel Elliott Will Rush For Over 200 Yards
Todd Gurley III, Fozzy Whittaker, and Christine Michael were the leading rushers for their respective teams when they took on the San Francisco 49ers in 2016’s first three weeks. They combined for 253 yards.
Todd had 47, Fozzy had 100, and Christine had 106. The Niners Defense has allowed more and more yards from the opposing primary running back as the season has ticked on. Now they’ll try to contain Ezekiel Elliott who is coming off of a 140-yard performance.
The Cowboys are very likely going to be without the services of Dez Bryant on Sunday, which means that they will be feeding Zeke – a lot. Zeke is going to eat, eat, eat, eat, and EAT all the way to his first 200-yard game in the NFL.
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Brice Butler Will Establish Himself As This Team’s WR2
9 catches, 143 yards, and 3 touchdowns. That’s what #19 had last time the Cowboys visited San Francisco.
To be totally fair, that game was five years ago… and that #19 was Miles Austin at his peak (a short-lived one). Nowadays Brice Butler slips the 1-9 over his shoulders on Sundays.
It was September 15th, 2015 when Dallas traded for Brice Butler in an effort to give them a viable option while Dez Bryant was sidelined. Thanks to injuries we never saw that happen, and we find ourselves in a similar situation a little over a year later.
This game will go a long way in determining who this team’s WR2 is and who the Cowboys are going to prefer in 2017 between Brice Butler and Terrance Williams. The former is going to make sure that at the end of the game we all know that it’s him.
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“The Catch” Will Be Mentioned
Cowboys/49ers is arguably the greatest rivalry in NFL History. Don’t believe me? NFL Films thought it was great enough to do a whole two-part episode of The Timeline on it a year ago called A Tale Of Two Cities (You can read about this from last year in my interview with NFL Films Senior Producer Paul Camarata).
There are many a moment that can be pulled from this historic rivalry, but none are bigger than “The Catch.” Considering that Troy Aikman and Joe Buck are on the call, you can bet that they’ll go through the rolodex of iconic plays, “The Catch” among them.
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Jason Garrett Will Make Another Bold Decision
2016 has brought forth a new disposition from Jason Garrett – a bold one.
In the last two games, contests that have seen the Cowboys come out victorious, Jason Garrett has gone for it on fourth and short early in the game twice and run a surprise onside kick. Yowza.
These are moves very uncharacteristic for the Jason Garrett that we’re familiar with. These are moves that are having a serious impact on this football team… in a fantastic way.
Jason Garrett has shown us through three games, and most recently the former two, that he is no longer here to punt (metaphorically and literally speaking). He’s taking 2016 by the horns and he’s in a position where he’d rather go down swinging than staring at a blank pitch.
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Cole Beasley Will End The Week Leading The NFL In Receptions
Entering Week 4 Cole Beasley had 20 receptions on the 2016 season which had him tied for fourth in the NFL (Antonio Brown and Jarvis Landry led entering the week with 24 each).
Cole Beasley has been targeted 12, 6, and 7 times so far this season. He’s on pace for a monster year as far as receptions go, and he’s going to show that again in the final game of the season’s first quarter.
Dak Prescott looks for Cole in almost every situation. He’ll be looking, and connecting, for him all day long as Cole becomes the lead dog in the NFL receptions list.
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Bonus Bold Prediction #1
Remember, if you want YOUR Bold Prediction featured here, tweet it at me! It’s that simple! Here are this week’s contributions, thanks to all those who shared!
https://twitter.com/DonnyKf5stk/status/781540686956867585
I like where Donny’s head is at on this one, and I’m always down for using historical points in Bold Predictions.
The Cowboys have gotten turnovers in each game this season so the likelihood of them getting one of some kind is relatively high. For what it’s worth the 49ers have turned the ball over at least once in every game this season, and they turned it over a hat trick of times during Week 2 in Carolina. Let’s do it again!
Bonus Bold Prediction #2
@rjochoa Bold Prediction: Zeke Elliott will Rush for over 150 yards and Receive over 100 yards and will lead the team in both categories!
— JPcards (@JP_cards51) September 30, 2016
Jones is feeling the Zeke magic this week as well!
Considering that Zeke hit 140 yards this week, 150 seems possible. Considering that I boldly predicted Zeke will top 200, 150 seems easy!
I think the interesting element to this is the receiving yards. We haven’t seen the Cowboys integrate Zeke a whole lot into the passing game, but in a game that likely won’t feature Dez Bryant it makes sense that Zeke would get his chance to finally snag some passes. Huzzah!
[signoff author=”rjochoa” source=”rjoshow”]
What are YOUR Bold Predictions for this week’s Cowboys/49ers game? Let us know! Comment below, Email me at RJ@RJOchoaShow.com, or Tweet to me at @RJOchoa!
